by Matt Erickson, USA TODAY Sports

by Matt Erickson, USA TODAY Sports

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre returned on Saturday after 19 months away and won a bloody battle against interim titleholder Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC 154.

St-Pierre (23-2 MMA, 17-2 UFC) got the win over Condit (28-6, 5-2 UFC) in front of his home fans in Montreal at Bell Centre, and the victory may have set up a superfight against middleweight champion Anderson Silva. St-Pierre won a unanimous decision with scores of 49-46, 50-45 and 50-45, earning two sweeps from the three judges.

Though St-Pierre was non-committal about a fight with Silva that would pit the world's top two pound-for-pound fighters against each other, the fight is one fans, as well as UFC President Dana White, have been clamoring for -- if St-Pierre could get past Condit.

"I was focusing on Carlos Condit 100%," St-Pierre said. "I need to take some vacation and think about (a Silva fight) and see where it puts my career. But I want to make sure I make the right choice. We'll see what's going to happen."

St-Pierre had been on the shelf since an April 2011 win over Jake Shields. Knee surgery nearly a year ago led to a long recovery. But if there was any cage rust for the champ, it wasn't evident -- save for one moment where Condit had him in trouble.

St-Pierre landed his first takedown against Condit 100 seconds into the fight, and he would go on to land six more. Toward the end of the first frame, St-Pierre landed a big left elbow on the ground that cut Condit above his right eye -- and that blood would be across his face for the next 20 minutes.

In the third, though, Condit landed a left kick to St-Pierre's head, stunning the champ and dropping him to the canvas. Condit moved in quickly, hoping to turn the tide and get a finish. With St-Pierre's head immediately swelling, Condit went to work. But St-Pierre managed to not only survive but get back to his feet -- and he started stalking his opponent down right away.

"I didn't see the kick," St-Pierre said. "I think in the round before, I got punched in the eye and my eyes were a little bit blurry. I never saw the kick. What you don't see, that's what's dangerous."

The fourth and fifth rounds featured more St-Pierre takedowns and control on the ground with Condit looking for any way at all to pull off a Hail Mary submission. But it never came.

"I'm still disappointed," Condit said. "I'm glad I was able to fight a guy like Georges and put on a good show. His top game was very, very good. He was able to hold me down better than I expected. I feel like I did pretty well and left it in here. I need to shore up some stuff for sure."

St-Pierre broke UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes' record with his 10th welterweight title fight victory.

In the co-main event, Johny Hendricks made a thundering case to get the next crack at the 170-pound title. The southpaw threw a right hook to set up a straight left hand that drilled Martin Kampmann in the chin and put him quickly on the canvas. The knockout came just 46 seconds into the fight.

If a potential fight between St-Pierre and Silva, which would be a non-title bout, does not take place, Hendricks almost certainly would be next in line to face St-Pierre. It was Hendricks' second first-round, one-punch knockout win in three fights -- and both came in less than a minute.